PicApp picks a fight with the wrong blogger

I’ve used Picapp. I’ve loved Picapp. I’ve certainly thought, in my innocence, that Picapp was too good to be true and that someday there’d be a price to pay.

And I just found out what it is.

A dealbreaker, that’s what it is.

Backing up a little: Picapp is a service which gets very fresh, high-quality photos to bloggers free of charge. And you know how we like “free of charge” around these parts. And, as a fashion/celebrity blogger, I’m in constant need of fresh images that aren’t the same as everyone else is using, and Picapp was great for that. They have a little Javascript thingy that displays a gallery of related images automatically at the bottom of each of their images.

They did get off to a shaky start with WordPress.com, when their presentation included one of my friend‘s copyrighted images, which she had not given permission to use. Oopsie.

Aaaaaanyway, once that little problem was cleared up they quickly proved themselves darn useful and indeed responsive to feedback, as they rejiggered their Gallery feature to be less obtrusive at bloggers’ requests. The other day I got a message saying that in order to continue using Picapp images, I’d have to install their widget (in space which could otherwise be sold for an ad, generating me a bit of much-needed income; in other words, this was going to cost me actual money). Fair enough; the goose that lays the golden eggs has a right to demand better quality goose feed Or Else. And I’m free to stop using their images if I don’t like the deal, right?

Wrong-O!

For today, there I am, happily blogging away, when I notice the latest image on my blog Ayyyy, which I took from Just Jared, as you can tell from the logo right on the image and which USED to be linked to the source page on JustJared, is no longer linked as per usual, to credit the image. No indeed; it is linked to Picapp, as are all images on that blog’s front page now. I’ve looked, and there is absolutely NOTHING in the code of that image that would cause that; their javascript is now operational across my entire front page, and at no point was I asked to opt-in to that, nor would I have.

It’s taken away my ability to credit the source of my images, and that’s just unconscionable.

UPDATE:

Today, images are back to normal. Picapp has claimed that I never saw what I saw (and that the network admin never saw what he saw on his blog, either) but the fact remains that last night the image in this blog post linked to:

In the Support Forum thread on this issue, I discussed one possible reason for the quick change: the javascript probably interfered with all affiliate links on those for-profit blogs, as affiliate code generally includes one small image which is invisible to the naked eye. No for-profit blog would ever consider running something that potentially rendered null and void all its affiliate links and ads.

Roi from Picapp here, didn’t mean to start a fight…. (-:
Feedback from our users is the best thing for us, helps us to improve ourselves.

We indeed launched a new feature this week (that was the notice email you got), the widget turns your images (ones you embed from Picapp and those you’ve upload from your sources) to a lightbox trigger. when you click on them it opens an elegant lightbox with a gallery of related images.

By default it doesn’t work on your uploaded images in your homepage, only on your uploaded images on your post pages.

1. If you’ll login and go to your dashboard – you’ll see a check box to control on which images will this functionality work on (images linked), where (Homepage or not), mind you the settings updates take ~30 mins to take place.

3. This new light box feature is great and not only you can still get regular images from us, we’ve opened a revenue share program for publishers so now you get: images, great lightbox , more engagement for your readers and get paid for that.

Feel free to contact us directly via our support site or here, we’re following your great content with no connection for your use of images…..

Hi Lorraine,
thanks you for using picapp and for the good feedback.
i just posted this on the forum . please contact me directly if you need any further help.

”

Hi Guys ,
picapp just launch its new product , the picapp widget , that turns every static image into a dynamic photo gallery. We built this tool based on feedback we got from many of you guys and are very pleased from the initial results.

Clarification #1 –> do you have to install the widget? :
no. installing the widget is not mandatory at all. you do it only if you like it and see the value in installing it! what we do ask however is for you to register on the new site.

Clarification #4 –> what will happen with the already used images and with the shortcode support?
due to insufficient interest , we cant continue to support the shortcode for much longer and we are in discussion with the wp.com team to find a solution that will enable the already-published images to stay on the blogs.

My motto: free is too costly! However it appears I developed an addiction to the ease of picapp. After attending one red carpet too many, it was great to just click and post. This is such a fail for picapp. There are other ways to generating revenue, like simply charging for a service. Doesn’t appear that they will fix this so . . . NEXT!

But I really have my doubts that this new PicApp code is going to be allowed to remain on WordPress.com because it would mean allowing a third party the ability to monetize WordPress.com blogs. At least at the moment, PicApp has stopped creating a dynamic gallery for every image on your blog, but you can still click on any PicApp image on my blogs and that “lightbox” gallery shows up with ads. (Correction: only on the 1 blog I could register on PicApp, my primary blog. On my photography blog using PicApp images, there’s only a blank space where the images should be. Screenshots forthcoming.)

There’s also the potential arresting of any future development of WordPress.com based image galleries, too. Since WordPress.com is basically the beta testing field for stand alone WordPress, the PicApp code could have other consequences.

I just want to reiterate that I spoke with the admin of the Ayyyy.com blog and both he and I saw this behavior independently on two different blogs, and that neither he nor I at any time installed the Picapp widget. Eyal has said that’s not true:

My blog has been taken over by the picapp widget too. Worse for me, ever since picapp changed their system, my login details have not been recognised so I can’t even get on to the “dashboard” to fix it. I even tried registering as a new user, setting up a dummy blog, and it just will not let me in.

Meantime, an image I put up yesterday NOT FROM PICAPP, has the little widget in the corner and opens to a slideshow with lots of unwanted and unrelated photos.

I have emailed the help desk 3 times to no avail. I found your post when I googled “problems with picapp widget” – Any suggestions much appreciated.

I”m sorry to hear this is still a problem. Afraid I can’t help you with the login problem, but once you get it fixed, strip out ALL the picapp stuff; both the widget and all the images on the front page. That should fix it, as I haven’t seen this on pages other than the first one.

Yes. I don’t mean strip it out in your Picapp dashboard; I mean remove the Picapp widget and ALL Picapp images from the front page of your blog. That seems to be the only way to guarantee it won’t recur. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

Well, looking at my Ayyyy.com blog, it now seems that only the Picapp images link to Picapp, and that NONE of the images, not even the Picapp ones, have the little Gallery box in the corner as they used to.

Hmm….very interesting…even now that’s the behavior on ayyyy.com, and clicking on a PicApp photo brings you to their website rather than invoking the lightbox gallery. However, back on WordPress.com it’s business as usual.

Update. After several email exchanges with Picapp, I was able to log in to Picapp and
deactivate the widget so it no longer was on non-Picapp images. Some of my picapp images have no lightbox, but some do and ALL seem to have the third party ads. I have emailed picapp again but so far no response. Sorry to be thick but when you say the front page of my blog what do you mean?

[…] my blog. Not just on Picapp images either, but on photos I uploaded from my own camera. I’m not the only one this happened to. Following intense email exchanges with Picapp this weekend (when I should have been reading you […]

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